CHILDREN’S services bosses have been rapped after a nine-year-old boy was left home alone by his mother.

She taught him how to use the toaster then locked him alone in the house for several hours because he was too ill to go to school.

Sussex Police passed the case on to social workers, who only gave his mother “strong words of advice” before closing the case.

Subsequently, Brighton and Hove City Council’s children’s services department was found to have not investigated the incident robustly enough, to have failed to protect the boy and to have not taken the concerns of his father seriously.

The boy told his father he had been feeling “very ill, absolutely dying” and was “scared” to be home alone.

An investigation into how children’s services handled the case found that neither the boy nor his father were interviewed about the incident and concluded that there were “significant gaps in the investigation”.

There is no legal age at which a child can be left home alone, but it is an offence to leave a child alone if it places them at risk.

The father, who has a shared residency order with the boy’s mother, said: “He was so ill he couldn’t go to school, so his mother locked him in the house all day.”

The Brighton dad added: “Social services seem to be saying ‘It’s only dad making the accusations’ and dismissing it.

“If it had been the other way round, I would never have seen my son again. It’s a flawed system.

“I called the police, but they said: ‘It’s a social services job’.

“I have massive concerns about my son’s continuing welfare and very little trust that this system will protect him.”

Kevin McCall, who authored the report for Brighton and Hove City Council, upheld four stage two complaints against the local authority’s children’s services raised by the father.

In his report he said: “[The father] should have been spoken to in the course of children’s services enquiries... which in the view of the investigating officer leaves significant gaps in their investigation.

“It is of concern that no one asked [the boy] about this event, how did he feel, was he scared etc?

“Why did he tell his father about the incident, what did he want to happen as a result of his disclosure?”

The report added: “He should have been formally informed of the outcome of the referral by children’s services. This did not occur.”

A council spokeswoman said they could not comment on individual cases.

A Sussex Police spokesman said: “We investigate all allegations of child neglect fully before deciding on the most appropriate course of action for the child and the family involved.

“In this case, a report was made to us a number of days after the incident happened. 

“The family had already been in contact with social services so, after the incident was investigated by us, it was decided that the best way forward was for social services to speak to those involved.

“Social services staff spoke to the child’s mother and gave her strong words of advice on the understanding that the incident would not be repeated.”